There are many robotics applications in which a robot must perform tasks that require contact with its environment. During performance of these tasks, compliant motion of the manipulator is required to prevent position errors from causing large contact forces as they can cause damage or lead to task failure. Compliant motion can be achieved by passive or active means. Active compliance uses force control to ensure the manipulator behaves compliantly when in contact with the environment, while passive compliance uses elastic elements or structural compliance of the manipulator. Although active compliance has well-known stability and performance issues, it is more versatile than passive compliance. Furthermore, the use of excessive passive compliance is detrimental to positioning accuracy and bandwidth of the robot. To overcome stability issues and improve performance of force control, passive and active compliance can be used together. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have apparatus that enables the simultaneous use of active and passive compliance in robotics applications.